We now come to another highly interesting portion of American history, which you would be hard pressed to find in the history books: the part played by the Jesuits in the American Revolutionary War-the War of Independence, 1776-1783.

We have seen the role of the Jesuits in the American Civil War. But what part,, if any, did they play in the earlier war that transformed America from a collection of independent States to a United States of America? The uninformed or partisan historians will tell us that this War was mainly, if not entirely, due to the arbitrary and "intolerable acts" of the British government, leading to the American Colonists desire to break with British rule. I will now venture to shed some light on this dimly reported aspect of American history–and offer you a very different, and we hope more correct view.

That religion played a major role in the American Revolution is beyond dispute. In 1776, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, there were little over twenty–three priests in all, and the next highest authority was the vicar apostolic in London, who had jurisdiction over the British colonies and satellites in America. The American Revolutionary War of Independence soon changed that.

The reason there were so few Catholics and so many more Protestants was because of the foundation of the great democracy that is today called the United States of America was laid when millions of European Protestants fled the oppression of the Catholic Church.